James Andrew Wilson reported himself to the SRA after malicious communications conviction
A junior lawyer has been fined £10,000 after a conviction for sending abusive messages to a woman he met through the Bumble dating app.
Legal Cheek reported last year that Victor Kruchinkin had received a community order for a string of hostile DMs to a woman known as Ms X, including one calling her a “gobby ethnic from Zone 8”, after she ended things after a couple of meet-ups.
Shortly after our story appeared, the young lawyer changed his name by deed poll from Victor Kruchinkin to James Andrew Wilson.
Wilson has now reached a settlement with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) after reporting his conviction to the regulator.
An agreed outcome records that Wilson had “persistently made use of a public electronic communications network for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience and needless anxiety to another”, contrary to section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.
In mitigation, Wilson pointed to redacted medical evidence and that he has since “attended various courses” to address his “inability to communicate in an appropriate social way”.
The SRA agreed that “a fine appears to be a sufficient sanction to mark the seriousness of the misconduct and to protect the public and reputation of the profession”. Wilson is to fork over £10,000 plus £2,600 in costs.
Signing off on the settlement, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that “the seriousness of the respondent’s admitted misconduct was not such that any sanction should interfere with his right to practise”.
